Atmosphericly heart-pounding, but had flaws

Rating: 7/10 (4 July 2003)

As a big fan of zombie movies, I knew I had to go see this film in theaters. Sure, the infected are not zombies in the dead sense, but they are close enough. Like most good zombie movies, the film relied on the characters' response to the zombies for a look at how people react than just making it a shoot-em-up movie. We do care for the good characters and since they are always in harms way, it is tense to see them in danger. One good guy dies early on in the film, so we know that there is not a guarantee that the people in the movie will live.
The film starts out with a bang, then suddenly goes limp for about 10 minutes. As the zombies pour in, the film finally advances in entertainment. Danny Boyle's direction is very claustrophobic in this film. We cannot tell in a lot of shots of the zombies exactly how far away they are from the protagonists. There is a scene in a tunnel where four people have to change a tire as we see the shadows and silhouettes of zombies closing in. Then the film goes limp again with too much dream sequencing. Then it builds to a climax with some troops, the best part of the movie.
While the film can terrify, there are some flaws that keep it from being a great work.
First and foremost, DIGITAL VIDEO. Why did Boyle decide to shoot the picture in this format? This film looks horrible projected. Anything in the background, even when it is the focus, is blurred. The film would have been much better off shot on High Definition, which can easily achieve the same color saturation as DV, is still easier to setup than a film camera, costs a little more but gives a clear, naturally 16x9 picture.
The music, while I like the fact that it slowly builds, is annoying. The creators let it build up too high so that it is deafening and you just want the damn music to end. And then there are scenes without music (or where it builds too slowly) and it really needs it to keep it from being too slow.
The MTV-style video editing during action scenes is atrocious.
I won't give away the ending, but the film did seem to drone on at times where I thought "THIS was the ending" (or we were near it)... and then the movie kept going. This is especially true about 3 minutes away from the REAL ending when a still frame is used and it goes to black at just the right moment that we think "this is the end."
The film could have been great. This effort by Boyle isn't anywhere near Trainspotting. 5/10